“We have to go,” Teresa said from very far away. She pulled at his sleeve. “Jim! We have to go.”
He turned to look at her—her impatient scowl, her hair pulled back over her ears. Muskrat, at her side, was dancing on anxious paws and whining. Or maybe that was him. He tried to say All right but realized he was about to vomit just in time to turn away.
We have to go, he thought. Come on. Pull it together.
He went to Amos, putting his arms under the big man’s knees and across his wide shoulders. On Earth, he’d never have been able to lift him. With the three-quarter g of Abbassia, he was heavy but manageable. Man, girl, dog, and corpse, they started running toward the Rocinante. Jim tried to yell Hurry, but the thing that had clenched up in his chest when he saw Amos blown apart wouldn’t let him. He didn’t look back. His peripheral vision started to narrow, like they were running down a tunnel that was slowly squeezing closed. He had to get to the ship. A wash of cold and wet stuck his clothes to his belly and his thighs. Amos’ black blood spilling down him.
Ahead of them, the airlock opened. Alex was in it, a rifle in one hand, waving them forward. The dog reached the lock first, misjudging the gravity and skittering against the hull. Teresa grabbed Muskrat around the middle and climbed the ladder with her. The weight of Amos’ body slowed Jim down, but Alex reached out to help with the last couple steps. Jim knelt, lowering the corpse to the deck. The eyelids had opened a slit during the run, and the eyes beneath focused on nothing. Jim closed them.
“Fuck,” Alex said. “What the fuck?”
“Take off now.”
“All right,” Alex said. “Let’s get stowed, and we’ll—”
Jim shook his head and opened a connection to Naomi. “We’re in. Get us up.”
“Are you in a couch?”
“No, so don’t bounce us around too much, but get us out of here.” She didn’t argue. The roar of the maneuvering thrusters rattled his teeth. He took Teresa by the shoulder, pulling her close to shout in her ear. “Get the dog to her couch and strap yourself in. I don’t know how bad this is going to get.”
She looked at him with an equanimity he couldn’t feel. She was hurt, frightened, traumatized. She was a kid. How could she stand to see what she’d seen? How could he?
“He isn’t secured,” she said.
“He won’t care. Go.”
The deck lurched under them, shifting slowly as the ship went from belly-down to the usual engine-down orientation. Muskrat whined, and Teresa took her by the collar, leading her away. Amos’ body shifted and rolled. There was horror in Alex’s eyes, and Jim felt a rush of anger. The distress in his old friend’s eyes was too much. If he tried to comfort Alex, it would be too much. He was shaking as it was, and he didn’t know if it was the vibration of the ship carving its way through the atmosphere, or his own body betraying him. Maybe both.
“We have to get to ops,” Jim shouted. Alex took a step toward the spent clay that had been Amos, then caught himself, and they made their rocking, unsteady way toward the central lift. The deck shook and plunged under them as they went from handhold to handhold. Thrust gravity and the pull of the planet made his knees and spine ache. His vision, dark. He found himself on the edge of confusion, unsure for a moment whether they were fleeing New Egypt or Laconia. When they reached the lift, he sat down to keep from passing out. His mind pieced itself together as they rose.
Alex squatted beside him. “You okay?”
“They were there waiting for us. They knew we were coming.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I should have been there.”
“She shot Amos in the back. Shot him in the back as we ran.”
Alex was quiet, because there wasn’t anything to say. Jim looked at his flight suit, smeared black from the gut to the knees. His hands were stained black too, but it still smelled like blood.
The lift pushed up, deck by deck. When they got to ops, Jim either had himself back together or he was fully dissociated. It was hard to know which.
The ride smoothed out as they reached the upper atmosphere. The winds were screaming past them, but with so little mass to the air that a ripping five-hundred-kilometer-per-hour current deflected them less than a breeze. The deck felt steadier under his feet. Naomi was in a couch, the flight controls on her screen. She glanced over as he lowered himself into the crash couch beside hers. He saw her register the blood and whose it was.
“Amos?” she asked.